So there I was on Christmas Eve, getting ready for the big day and all the celebration. The Christmas carols were turned up full volume, and the house smelled like baking bread. Cookie dough was waiting its own turn in the oven, but with all this good cheer, I still couldn’t shake an unusual sense of loss I’d been feeling for days.

As my Christmas gift to you, I want to share a passage from Fugitive, my novel published in the 1990s, as I did last year. Tate, the heroine, has moved to a cabin on land in the Ozark mountains, left to her by a father she never knew. This is an entry from his journal.

Did you know that Christmas cookies trace their lineage to medieval holiday rituals and Christmas cakes? Christmas lebkuchen (gingerbread) was probably the first “cookie” prepared for the holiday, and by the 1500s Christmas cookies had caught on all over Europe. The Dutch brought them to the US in 1600, and nobody’s looked back since.

At this time of year I’m reminded of a young mother I once knew. Christmas was always her favorite time of year, and each year she baked the family’s traditional cookies and the annual bishop’s cake. With the family in tow she bought or cut down the season’s Christmas tree, and hauled the ornaments from the attic to be carefully unwrapped and placed on limbs by little hands.

Booklover Carols are becoming a tradition here. You’ll find links to last year’s tongue-in-cheek carols at the bottom. This year we have to honor the ” talk of the publishing world” with its very own selection. Plus, as we run out to buy last minute gifts, let’s not forget our favorite independent bookstore, which will quickly vanish if we don’t support them.

“‘This is your Christian day of rest,’ Janya said. ‘You bake pie all week, and tomorrow, even if Wanda’s is closed, you will be there preparing for Tuesday.’

Wanda stared out the narrow rusty window with its view of scrub and one screeching blackbird. ‘Wanda’s Wonderful Pies? That’s work. But creating a new pie in my own kitchen, even this scrawny, good for nothing excuse for a real kitchen?

Recently I had the joy of receiving this email from one of my readers, Joyce in Maryland. The story of Aunt Verdie is so lovely that I asked Joyce if I could share it with you. My fondest wish for everyone reading this is that you have or have had an Aunt Verdie in your life.

Albert Einstein once said: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Who am I to argue with Al, whose theory of relativity was as simple as 1, 2, 3 to the power of infinity? Last night as I stood in my kitchen among the remnants of a delicious and ultimately overcomplicated meal for eight, I asked myself exactly why simplicity continually eludes me.

You’re moving right along on your new project. The characters are no longer one dimensional, the plot’s moving at just the right pace; then suddenly you sit down at the computer/typewriter/legal pad and nothing happens. You’re stuck.

Nothing is more chilling to a writer than an empty page. I outline extensively to avoid them, but even with that weapon in my arsenal, sometimes I still don’t know what comes next, or how to put it there.